Beautiful women, ramen, and roast pork buns at Ippudo, NYC

It’s funny how it happens: I met photographer Michael Donnelly at the end of a different friendship. I happened to be at the friend of that friend’s apartment, and when I learned that his father had photographed Ruth Reichl, culinary goddess and editor of Gourmet, I knew I had to meet him. He walked out of his room wrapped in a white bathrobe and spoke with a rarefied South African accent. We chatted about chefs, cooking, and Ruth, and the next day, I googled him and sent a thank you email.

We finally ended up meeting again recently at a Japanese ramen restaurant called Ippudo (65 4th Avenue, NYC) at his suggestion. (It was recently reviewed by Frank Bruni in the NY Times. Bruni, sadly, recently resigned as the Times restaurant critic.) Ippudo is the kind of restaurant that subscribes to the entire experience. I had to fight my way through a heavy red drape to make it to the bar, where he was waiting. A slender, long-necked Asian barmaid with ruler-straight bangs handed him his receipt. As we followed our hostess (a butterfly tattoo pinned down by a spaghetti strap across her left shoulder), two waiters cried welcomes in enthused Japanese.

“They have fantastic roast pork buns,” he told me as we sat down. We both got a bowl of ramen with berkshire pork. In the background, servers served up screams with their sake bombs.

I immediately photographed the roast pork buns (lip smackingly fatty and perfectly spicy). Throughout the meal, he proved to be one of the most photograph-supportive meal partners I’d ever had. Rather than being intimidating (after all, he’d shot for Vogue and Elle), he offered nothing but praise and support. He even failed to offer constructive criticism at my prompting, and just encouraged me to continue shooting.

Our ramen came, a sunburst of a halved hardboiled egg floating amidst the dramatic mottling of oil on its surface. I fished out the fatty bits of pork first for a taste. We talked a bit about my summer plans, then about racism in the modeling industry. He talked about the honor and intimacy in photography, about beauty (its power, personality, and transience), and also his experiences shooting Claudia Schiffer (a bombshell) and Brooke Shields (who looked pretty but not spectacular in person, but unexpectedly stunned on film). He loved Isabella Rosselini, who was “mousy” in person but fantastic in front of the camera.

“The best girls,” he said, “are a little off. They have to really try.”

I was glad I took a look at the dessert menu. It came as a tiny red book, smaller than my palm, with each dessert presented as a low-fi picture and facing title. I decided on the matcha brulee, which turned out to be a green tea creme brulee topped by a scoop of green tea ice cream and crown with a paper-thin slice of dessicated strawberry.

He told me about the incredible, short career of Alexa Singer, who shot ten covers of Vogue in one year.

The waitress came with mugs of tea.

He showed me mockups of the book he was working on, about how chefs communicate through cooking, and pointed out photos of Jean Georges, and Lydia Shire, and the beautiful image he’d taken of Ruth Reichl in a wide-brimmed black hat sitting in a room bathed in light.

“I think I’ll have her write the introduction,” he mused.